This way - and especially testing five engines or with five engines from the beginning would tend to increase costs. It would require to build five engines at once.

This doesn't fit into Elon Musk's explicit goal: reduction of costs below the status quo. To achieve that goal the costs of tests, reserach and development have to be kept as low as possible without loss of completeness, accuracy, diligency and so on.

Because of this it is very reasonable to start with one engine only.

Plus it is required to get experiences by flight which are superior to tests. It is cheaper to do a flight with one engine only at the beginning. By flight suboptimalities etc. can be detected a test will not reveal.

Not only costs are kept low this way - it saves time and this is the section about the America's Space Prize Elon Musk has said he intends to compete for: What he is doing is a proper strategy to win the ASP.

Why's he using turbopumps? I've seen about a dozen or so different texts that say that turbopumps just increase your dry weight, are a pain to maintenance, and have the nasty habit of not working just when you most need them. Aren't there other types of pumps that work just as well?

I have no idea. I wish he and Blue origon would join forces for a BA-2 revival myself.
turbopumps were a pain in the behind--but he is already committed to them for whatever reason.

There is more to rocket design than just engineering. It is also about showmanship.

Imagine if EKKE were a billionaire investor and I had a five engine rocket.

One of my five engines shuts down--but I burn the other four longer. All Ekke sees is a tube with fire coming out of it that continues to rise. The mission is salvaged, and I have a good shot of having him give me money. There was an engine loss, but he does not notice it. Only I do--so engine-out gives me fudge factor.

If I had a single engine rocket--and it quits, the vehicle topples right back on the pad.

Ekke gets up, walks out, and I got nothing.

In both cases, I lost one engine. The result with one loss being negligible to image--the other more catastrophic, to both vehicle--and Image.

That is why Musk should have fielded Falcon V first--and then--when comfortable with the engine--go to Falcon I later.

Dude, you who are the endlessly prattling proponent of government space programs... if $10 billion invested in private-sector space activity would transform humanity, then how come the hundreds of billions spent by governments in the last four decades have not?

Somewhere I read in the last few days that the maiden flight of the Falcon V will be in November 2005 - is that old and not updateed data as I suppose or were the reasons at SpaceX (nearly no problems detected during Flacon I tests and so on) that the delay to 2006 has been removed?

Dude, you who are the endlessly prattling proponent of government space programs... if $10 billion invested in private-sector space activity would transform humanity, then how come the hundreds of billions spent by governments in the last four decades have not?

Because those hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on things like the Vietnam war instead of Sea Dragon, on Iraq instead of Solar Powersats.

But there were good things--TVA, the Eisenhower Interstate system--and other things that institutions--not individuals--can build. Just because you put the word 'private' in front of something doesn't guarantee success either.

It's not being a 'jerk' to wonder if money being givin away overseas is wisely spent--it is being realistic.

What eats at me is how the USA can forgive debt to the third world, allow corporations to have bankruptcy--but if Joe Q Six-Pack needs to declare bankruptcy from living on Cards (because he has no job from being hurt at work because his jerk employer had little insurance)--he has to eat it.

Jeff/publius you stated that what Bill and Melinda Gates are doing with their excess cash is a waste of money. You didn't wonder about it, you didn't ask any sort of question, you made a statement to that effect.

So I replied with a statement which I thought was in balanced counterpoise.

What someone wants to do with his or her money is his or her business. Your peevish complaint that the money isn't going to your pet fancy is pretty childish. You're always "I wish" this and "I wish" that, and never considering the reasons why your HLLV dreams aren't coming true.

Just as an aside, and based on your interpretation of the Gates' choices (your judgment of ill-directed philanthropy) What value do you place on human life? Judging from what you have said my bet would be that it's conditional on either or both of race and nationality.

DKH

(what eats me is that it took so long for the developed world to realize that it couldn't squeeze the living hell out of the undeveloped world forever)

Because those hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on things like the Vietnam war instead of Sea Dragon, on Iraq instead of Solar Powersats.

No, dude... I was specifically referring to the hundreds of billions spent by the US, USSR, China, Japan, France, etc. on space. Hundreds of billions. Scores of billions annually. By multiple bodies. Thousands of brilliant minds. Huge, phenomenal resources pursuing many different avenues. NASA's budget alone has been more than $10 billion annually for decades.

Your ill-gotten lawsuit winnings would be pretty paltry in comparison, and they would vanish like a liter of LH2 in a paper cup in North Africa, leaving your species in precisely the same socio-political-economic trajectory as it was before Uncle Bill fired his chauffer.